Easter is late this year—a day short of the latest date possible—. In fact, the factors that determine the date of the Church’s prime moveable feast are so unusual this year that an eighth Sunday is an astronomical and liturgical rarity. There was no Eighth Sunday in 2008 or 2005 or even 2002. This week’s reading of Matthew 6—rare in the Sunday cycle but familiar in our hearing—couldn’t be more timely.
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?” (6:25).
Do not worry?? You've got to be kidding. Most days, life feels like one worry strung after another like lights on a morbid Christmas tree. Worries attend us like bees to honey.
Worry characterizes our age. If you’re not worrying—contemporary logic seems to suggest—you’re not paying attention. The news that bombards us daily is packaged and presented with an often false-urgency meant to exploit our fears and our already-frazzled nerves. We are an anxious people living in anxious times—or so the politicians and pundits tell us. If we haven’t got our funeral planned, insured our family and have a shark vacuum and a roomba with a steam mop then our lives are over.
So how in the world, then, can Jesus possibly ask us -- really, command us! -- not to worry?
Wait a second, though. Did you notice that today's passage doesn't start with the injunction about worry? No, it starts with an assertion that we cannot serve two masters, both God and Mammon. If we try, Jesus says, we'll end up loving one and hating the other. So what's the connection? But it isn’t generic worry that Jesus admonishes against in the Sermon on the Mount. His is not advice for the self-improvement-seeking crowd. Indeed, the crowds gathered on the hillside to hear this unusual exhortation are told that the source of their anxiety is economic—that they are prone to worry because they are preoccupied with security and acquisition. Strive instead, Jesus preaches, “for the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (6:33). Kingdom economics is not about acquiring and accumulating but about shedding stuff and sharing with others; it’s not about security but about learning to live out of control.
“No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” (Matthew 6:24 NLT).
The word here for ‘money’ here is mammon or mammonas and refers to ‘that in which one puts one’s trust’, or to ‘treasure’ or ‘riches’. (It makes me think of the words written on the US Dollar bill, “In God We Trust”, which should probably read “This is the God in whom we trust”). “Therefore” says Jesus, “Do not worry…” Money does not free us from worry. Treasure, no matter how much we may have, does not keep us safe, secure or content. If our trust, if our heart, is built on financial, material or physical security, then we will always, ultimately, be disappointed.
So, if we are to be free from worry, it will require us to stop trusting in our mammon.
But, Jesus doesn’t stop there, because if he did, we would still not be free from the pressures and stresses and concerns of life. He ends this section with some of the most misunderstood words in the Scriptures:
“Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and He will give you everything you need.” (6:33).
We have usually taken this to mean that we must live free from sin in order to enter heaven when we die. We take this to mean that if we are confident of our eternal destiny, then we will be able to put our temporal concerns in perspective and be free of worry.
I believe that Jesus was saying something far more radical, something that connects directly to all he has been saying up to this point, and all that will follow. Something that, if we could really hear the message and put it into practice, would so change us and our world that freedom and security would be the norm, not the exception. This simple verse is the key to unlock the invitation to worry-free living.
The Sermon on the Mount is the manifesto of the Kingdom of God that Jesus preached and lived. It is the basic direction for what life in God’s kingdom looks like, and this is not about life after death. It is about how life now, here on earth, should be lived. That’s why in the beginning of Chapter 6, when teaching on prayer, Jesus invites his disciples to pray, “May Your Kingdom come soon. May Your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” The Kingdom of God is to be our present reality first. Only then can it be a future hope.
At the start of Jesus’ ministry, in Luke Chapter 4, Jesus uses Isaiah to proclaim what this Kingdom is like:
“The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, for He has anointed Me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the LORD’s favour has come.” (Luke 4:18-19)
Many scholars believe this was a reference to the Jubilee, the festival of Israel in which land reverted to its original owners, slaves were freed, debts were cancelled, and the people trusted God for their provision for two whole years of work-free living. (see Leviticus 25:10-19). It is impossible to understand Jesus’ idea of God’s Kingdom, or the exhortation to be free of worry, without reference to the Jubilee.
Jubilee living ensured that no one in the nation would ever be uncared for. No one would ever have to live without at least the basic necessities. No one, essentially, would ever have to worry about tomorrow – even if they fell on hard times. The whole community, recognising their connectedness and their dependence on one another would support, protect and provide for each other. Like the birds who live with the freedom that comes from knowing and enjoying their place in an interconnected eco-system, like the flowers who parade a beauty which can only exist because of the soil which has been fertilised by other creatures and the pollen which they share freely with one another, Jubilee people live wealthy, worry-free, interdependent lives.
Poverty is not the lack of money. It is the lack of relationships. If you were dropped off in an unfamiliar city, with no money, no shelter and no food, how long would it take you to find a place to sleep, a good meal and some funds to keep you going? In a Jubilee world, no one is without such networks that they could find, and so no one has any reason to worry.
This is why Jesus calls us to seek first God’s Kingdom and God’s justice. it is clear that the kind of righteousness Jesus is speaking about is not some legalistic avoidance of a few ‘don’ts’, but rather a commitment to the ‘dos’ of God’s Kingdom, which are all about creating a more compassionate, equitable and peaceful world (see the Beatitudes). If we desire to live a whole life, a free life, an unconcerned life, then we must seek the Jubilee-Kingdom before all else. We need to take responsibility for caring for one another. We need to nurture and protect our connections and celebrate our interdependence.
In order to do this, we have to release our devotion to and our trust in money. Money isolates us and leads us into self-protective hoarding. When we trust in our treasure, we can never have enough and so we inevitably begin to give less and share less and connect less. How many people who have won the lottery refuse to tell their friends and family members for fear that they will be expected to share? You cannot live a Jubilee life if you are trusting in money. In fact, treasure will lead you in exactly the opposite direction – as it did for the people of Israel and as it continues to do across the globe today. There is no lack of wealth, food or resources in our world today. There is only the lack of sharing, connectedness and equitable distribution that would ensure that all people have enough. To experience Jubilee takes a shift in our loyalties – from ourselves, our resources, our accumulated treasure, to God, God’s resources and God’s interconnected community.
Faith, then, is not something tacked on to our lives. It is not a simple agreement with certain ideas and it is not a “red telephone” to ensure that God, like a super hero, will swoop in to save us whenever we get into trouble. Rather, faith is the re-orientation of our lives to God’s purpose, God’s values and God’s priorities. It is giving up our trust in our own resources and opening ourselves to the community of men and women who are willing to embrace a new, Jubilee, way of living. Faith is trusting in Christ’s message and Christ’s life enough to truly seek first God’s kingdom and justice. Because if we do this, all things will be added to us, worry will be a thing of the past, and we will know the freedom of strong and secure networks of mutual care and support.
The question is whether we can believe this vision sufficiently to actually live it out. Is it possible to live a worry free life? Can faith really make such a thing possible? Jesus certainly believed it. But, we won’t know if he was right until we’ve actually tried it.
MPC